


All I Need is a Hero

by blue_jack



Category: DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Russian Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13122285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_jack/pseuds/blue_jack
Summary: Time froze as the mugger began turning his gun towards her, as Bruce’s father took a step in between them, and Bruce knew nothing was ever going to be fine again.





	All I Need is a Hero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightFoliage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightFoliage/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Я жду героя](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15641262) by [gotham2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham2018/pseuds/gotham2018), [mistralle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistralle/pseuds/mistralle)



> ETA 2: This has now been translated into Russian by the awesome gotham2018 as well, wow!
> 
> ETA: This has now been translated into Russian by the lovely Kikyou. You can find it at https://ficbook.net/readfic/6361664. \o/
> 
> This is for nightfoliage for the SuperBat Secret Santa Exchange on tumblr. I used the prompt “au where they are unlikely to meet but still do” with a side helping of some identity porn. I know it’s kind of weird way to approach the prompt, but I swear, my brain was stuck. I kept trying to think of something else, but I just couldn’t, and then when I was almost finished writing this, a torrent of other scenarios came bursting into my brain. Idk, guys. Idk.
> 
> I actually signed up for two gift exchanges these season, and the overarching theme seems to be “this should be longer, but it’s not,” but I hope you enjoy it anyway, nightfoliage! Happy holidays!
> 
> Opening scene taken from _Batman Begins_. I’m running with the idea that Clark hasn’t always been invulnerable; it was something that developed as he got older. Also, I'm making Bruce and Clark only about a year apart in age. There's a lot of hand waving going on in this fic tbh, just go with it.
> 
> Thanks to the mods for organizing this and all their hard work!

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” his father said carefully, but it wasn’t. Bruce had never been so scared in his entire life.

“Just take it and go,” his father told the mugger, and Bruce chanted _please, please, please_ in the silence of his mind.

“I said jewelry!” the mugger snarled, and Bruce’s mom started tugging at her rings.

Time froze as the mugger began turning his gun towards her, as Bruce’s father took a step in between them, and Bruce knew nothing was ever going to be fine again.

The gun fired.

Bruce’s whole body jerked as he heard a gasp of pain and his mother screamed—

“Bruce, are you alright?” his father demanded frantically, shaking him, and Bruce’s eyes snapped open just in time to see the silhouette of a boy against the far end of the alley. Then it was gone and his father’s hands were cupping his face, turning his head toward him. “Are you alright, Son?” his father asked, his voice cracking, and Bruce stared at him in wonder.

\-----

“It was the damndest thing, Jim,” his father told Officer Gordon. 

Bruce should’ve been in bed, but he and his parents hadn’t really left each other’s sight all night long, and he was dozing on the couch with his head in his mother’s lap.

“He was aiming at Martha, and I didn’t think. I couldn’t let him—and the gun fired, it did, but nothing happened, and then it was like something just … he launched into the air a good six feet! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

He could hear the creaking of leather. “Sometimes, Thomas, we get into an incredibly dangerous situation, and we don’t … we don’t remember what happened afterward. It’s like our brains can’t handle—”

“I know that, Jim, you think I don’t know that?” 

“What I’m saying, though, is that maybe you shoved him, but the stress made you forget—”

“Martha would’ve seen me do it—”

“Like I said, we don’t always remember—”

“He went _flying_!”

Bruce fell asleep thinking about the boy he’d seen, his hands curled around the fabric of his mother’s dress.

\-----

“Dad?”

His father looked up from his desk. “Couldn’t sleep, Bruce?” he asked, and Bruce shook his head.

“Would you like to keep me company for a while then, until you get tired?”

Bruce nodded and made his way over to the armchair near the fire. For days, he’d needed to see at least one of his parents’ faces almost all the time, to have proof they were alive, but he’d finally gotten to the point where just hearing them move around was enough.

He sat quietly for a while, just staring into the flames, before he finally broke the silence.“Dad? That night …”

There was no need to tell his father which night. They both knew.

“Yes, Bruce?” 

He could tell his father had stopped working and was looking at him, but he kept his face towards the fireplace. He'd kept the secret of what he’d seen bottled up for the past few weeks, because he’d known he wouldn’t be believed, knew that it sounded like something out of a book rather than real life. He had so many questions, though, and he hoped his father could at least give him some of the answers he was looking for.

“I think I saw someone. Right … right after.”

Bruce took a deep breath.

“I think he was the one who saved us.”

“You do?” his father said, and Bruce listened for any sign that his father thought he was making it all up but couldn’t find it. He almost turned around in order to search his father’s face, but he wasn’t sure he could finish if he did.

“There was this gust of wind.” Bruce hadn’t even noticed back then, but the first time he’d felt a strong breeze against his face, it’d catapulted him back into the memory of that night, and he’d realized it’d been there. “And a sound like someone had gotten hurt, but I thought it was you. I thought you’d gotten—that you’d been—”

“Oh, Bruce. It’s okay,” his father said, and Bruce hadn’t realized his father had moved until he was hugging him to his chest. “I’m fine. We’re all fine.”

 _It’s fine. It’s fine_ , he heard his father saying, and Bruce shuddered.

“And when I opened my eyes,” he said hoarsely, clinging to his father, “I saw him at the end of the alley. Just for a second, like he was making sure we were okay, and then he left. Why would he do that? Why would he just leave?”

His father was quiet for a long moment and then he sighed. He stood up, lifting Bruce and then sitting down with him in his lap, his cheek resting on Bruce’s hair.

“I remember the wind,” his father said and Bruce froze. “It’d been such a calm night up until that point, and then this huge gust came out of nowhere …. You saw him at the end of the alley?”

Bruce nodded slowly.

“He would’ve had to run pretty fast to get that far so quickly,” his father said, sounding distracted, but only for a second. “Did you see what he looked like?”

“No,” Bruce said, because he hadn’t gotten a glimpse of his face or even what he’d been wearing. He kept the fact that it’d been a boy to himself. “Just his outline.”

“Hmm. Well, there’s no way to know if he saved us, or if I somehow managed to do it in some sort of adrenalin-induced mania,” his father said, snorting, “but I will say this: I’ve heard stories about people with … abilities, strange and special abilities that make them different from us ordinary mortals. And if by some miracle, this man had those and decided to use them to protect us, well, then I thank God for him, Bruce. It’s something I can never repay. I could’ve lost you and your mother that night,” he said, squeezing Bruce tightly. “I can’t even begin to imagine how I would’ve survived after that.”

\-----

The next day, Bruce couldn’t stop thinking about what his father said.

People with special abilities. The kid had to be one of them. He’d looked about the same height as Bruce, which meant they had to be close in age, and yet he’d rushed in and put himself in danger for them.

Bruce remembered feeling sick with fright, could feel the nausea start to boil up just thinking about it. 

He must’ve been scared. He must’ve been so scared.

But he’d saved them.

_I could’ve lost you and your mother that night. I can’t even begin to imagine how I would’ve survived after that._

He wiped at the tears that started falling down his cheeks.

Just thinking about it made his stomach twist into knots. If he’d lost his father, or-or his mother … If he’d lost _both_ —

His whole body flinched from the horror.

They were safe, he reminded himself, his feet taking him towards the garden where his mother was. He knew they were. They all were. No one had been hurt, except—

Bruce stumbled to a halt, his stomach dipped all the way to his knees. He remembered the choked-off gasp. 

How had he—he’d forgotten. No. No, he hadn’t forgotten, he just hadn’t thought about it, had been so focused on himself that he hadn’t given any thought to what had happened to the boy.

What if he were still hurt? 

What if he’d died?

“Alfred!” He ran downstairs. “Alfred! Where do you keep all the newspapers for the past few weeks!” It’d be in the news. There’d be some story of a kid being shot—

“I generally throw them out after a couple of days. Why do you ask, Master Bruce?” Alfred looked up from smoothing icing onto a cake and immediately put the icing spatula down, coming around the counter to him.

“Master Bruce, is something the matter?”

Bruce stared helplessly up at him through wet eyes.

Alfred crouched down. “Bruce, what’s wrong?” he said, his voice aching and kind, unbearably so, and Bruce broke down and told him everything.

\-----

Up until that point, Bruce had assumed he’d follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor. Everything changed after that night, however, and for the next several years, Bruce did all that he could to hone his body and mind in order to become the perfect weapon, the perfect shield for all the people who desperately needed someone to save them.

His parents understood to some extent, didn’t try to turn him away from his newfound interest in criminology and martial arts, but they didn’t think he should push himself so hard. They encouraged him to go out with his friends instead of spending so much time at the library, told him that there was no need to train until his knuckles bled.

Bruce didn’t want to make them worry, but a spark had been born the night he’d almost lost his parents. The night he’d almost lost his whole world.

That boy had saved him, had put his life on the line, and Bruce hadn’t even tried to look for him to see if he’d been okay. There hadn’t been any stories in the newspapers about an injured kid—Alfred had helped him search once he'd understood—but it wasn’t any kind of guarantee. 

Alfred had told him multiple times that it wasn’t his fault, that he’d been in shock and couldn’t be blamed for not searching for the boy right away. Bruce knew better, though.

If he’d just told his father right away. If he hadn’t been so worried about not being believed, had focused on what mattered instead of his pride and own concerns.

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t tried to save the one person who’d given him … everything. 

There were other people, however, that Bruce _could_ save if he were willing to follow in the boy’s footsteps. It wouldn’t make up for his mistakes, but it was all he could do.

He didn’t have any special abilities, but that just meant to he had to work harder, had to be smarter in order to accomplish what he could. 

So he trained and he trained, and he kept an ear out for anything strange and fantastic. Not because he had any real expectation of finding the boy, but because he couldn’t give up the last bit of hope that one day he might.

\-----

There were stories coming out of Kansas. Nothing definitive. Just … odd.

Bruce knew it wouldn’t lead to anything, knew that it’d be another dead end to go with the dozens he’d already encountered over the years.

It didn’t stop him from buying a ticket anyway.

One day, he’d have access to the company plane, he reminded himself as he waited for his connecting flight, which had been delayed because of bad weather. That wouldn’t happen, of course, until he took over his father’s job as head of Wayne Enterprises, which was years off, but it was still something to look forward to. 

By the time Bruce landed and got his rental car, four hours later than planned, he was in a terrible mood. The traffic on the freeway didn’t help, nor did the occasional clunking noise that had begun thirty miles out, nor the weird smell that came out of the A/C, nor the warnings of a possible tornado, and he cursed the fact that he’d ever heard of Smallville, let alone decided to visit it.

The cursing turned exponentially worse when everyone stopped and started getting out of their car in the middle of the road, and he saw the tornado forming ahead of him.

Bruce didn’t bother with his suitcase in the trunk, but he grabbed his backpack from the passenger’s seat before abandoning his car. He herded people towards the overpass, knowing he didn’t have much time but wanting to make sure everyone got to their only chance of safety. He wasn’t the only one, he noticed, another man doing the same on the other side of the bridge.

He only headed for cover when he was certain everyone else was moving, and he glanced up the road to make sure the good Samaritan was doing the same, just in time to see him hand over a little girl to someone else and then head back.

What the ever loving fuck.

Bruce looked at the man carrying the girl—he was about his own age, Bruce realized, his face twisted with worry as he ran toward an older woman—and it didn’t take a great leap of logic to realize they were a family. 

Bruce had stopped once he hit the overpass and could see the son approaching another women who held out desperate arms for the girl—so she at least wasn’t directly related but another act of heroism—and then focused his attention on the father. Why had he gone back? Who was he looking for? Didn’t he realize how close the tornado—?

Bruce watched as a car, barely visible through the debris, came barrelling towards the father, and then he was moving.

He was less than five meters away when the car nearly landed on top of the other man, but it just made him go faster. 

He wrenched open the door, nearly getting bowled over by a dog—a dog, he’d gone back for a _dog_.

“No, Clark, you—!” The good Samaritan stared at him in surprise.

Ignoring his outburst, Bruce looked down and saw his foot was trapped against the door, glanced out the window and realized he had maybe a couple of seconds left to drag him out, and he grabbed him under his shoulders. With a gruff, “Sorry about this,” he _yanked_ , ignoring the resulting shout of pain, and then slung him across his shoulders, nearly staggering as he tried to find his balance.

He’d been training for the last eight years for this kind of situation, though, and once he got his feet under him, he started to run.

He knew the chances of survival were slim; the tornado was almost directly on top of them. But what had he been supposed to do? Let the family watch their father and husband die in front of them? 

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

Bruce yelled his defiance and forced himself to go faster, his muscles burning, his breath coming in harsh pants.

Later, he’d see videos of the tornado doubling back on itself, see meteorologists on the news discuss its strange behavior and explain how outflow winds could cause such a phenomenon, but at the time, all he saw was the way the family looked at him as they rushed out to meet them and pull them into the relative safety of the overpass.

The son’s expression especially stuck with him, emotional and overwhelmed and like he saw every question answered in Bruce’s face.

\-----

The Kents insisted Bruce stay with them instead of going to his hotel.

Bruce would normally have refused, but his hotel was over fifteen miles away, his car was a wreck, both figuratively and literally, and due to the tornado, there were no rental cars or hotel rooms available in the immediate vicinity. At least he’d grabbed his backpack, so he had his phone, wallet, and a few things he’d wanted to keep close by.

Martha went with Jonathan to the hospital, but they prodded Clark to take Bruce back to their house, saying Bruce surely had to be exhausted after what he’d done and didn’t need to wait around for Jonathan to get his ankle looked at. Bruce remembered how he hadn’t wanted his parents to leave his sight after he’d almost lost them and told Clark he should go with them, but Clark had lifted his chin and said it wouldn’t be right. He’d called his friend, Lana, instead, and she’d come to give them and Hank the dog, who had made his way back to his family, a ride.

Clark was quiet for the majority of the trip, a far-off look in his eyes, head tilted, as if he were listening to something, his hand running through Hank’s fur. He’d frequently glance at Bruce, though, gratitude coming off of him in near visible waves, and it made Bruce uncomfortable.

It wasn’t the first time he’d helped someone, had stepped into the middle of fights and chased down a couple of purse-snatchers, had even taken down a mugger carrying a knife. Bruce had walked away from those occasions, however, shaking with adrenaline and filled with an almost bone-deep satisfaction, knowing that he was doing what he was meant to do. This was different. He was still certain of his calling, maybe more so, but he felt .... he didn’t know how he felt. Maybe because of how close he’d come to losing his own life (he’d disarmed the mugger with a well-placed roundhouse before the knife had ever gotten near him); maybe because it’d happened right in front of Jonathan's family, which reminded Bruce all too vividly of that night, he didn’t know. Whatever the reason, he found himself avoiding Clark’s gaze as much as possible, trying to calm the buzzing under his skin. 

He decided he’d stay with the Kents for one night, and then go home the next day, back to his own family, the desire to see them a dull ache in his chest that had developed since he’d seen the way Martha and Clark had clung to Jonathan. 

Bruce thanked Lana for the ride and then waited several feet away as Clark made his own goodbyes, looking out at the farm, which didn’t appear to be touched by the tornado, and then followed Clark and Hank into the house.

“Can I get you something to eat or to drink?” Clark asked, hand lifting towards the kitchen, and Bruce shook his head.

“No, thank you. I wouldn’t mind a chance to shower, though.”

“Yeah, of course! I should’ve—” Clark flushed and started walking up the stairs. “You can borrow some of my clothes, and I can put your stuff in the washer.”

“Thanks, that’d be great.”

Bruce spent a long time in the shower. The Kents had surprisingly good water pressure and apparently a huge tank, because the hot water never stopped, which he appreciated more than he could say. He kept thinking about what had happened, about what _could_ have happened, and the hot water couldn’t chase the chill from his body, but it helped to keep the worst of it at bay. 

When he finally got out, he devoted several minutes in the bathroom to stretching out his arms and back. It wasn’t the best place for it, but he wasn’t sure how much privacy he was going to have, and he didn’t want to reveal how sore he was to Clark.

It would’ve been nice if there’d been any Icy Hot or something similar in the medicine cabinet, but surprisingly, considering how solid Clark looked, there wasn’t any around. Either Clark had used up the last of it and forgotten to restock, or he just lived with the pain of overworked muscles all the time.

Wearing the sweats Clark had given him, Bruce opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the hallway, just in time to see a half-naked Clark opening the door to what was presumably his bedroom.

What.

Apparently Clark had gotten tired of waiting for Bruce to finish and had taken a shower in a different bathroom, because he was dripping wet with a towel hanging low around his hips.

Bruce didn’t mean to stare.

But Clark was gorgeous.

Bruce had noticed Clark was attractive, but it’d only been a passing observation, his mind too focused on Jonathan initially, then on dealing with the effects of the storm, and then with avoiding Clark’s obvious gratitude and dealing with his own reaction.

There was nothing to distract him now, however.

Bruce knew he should stop gawking, say something at the very least, but he honestly couldn’t think of a single thing to say. 

Clark was just … 

Bruce had assumed that Clark was younger than his own twenty years by a year or two, fresh-faced and so, so earnest, but with his hair wet and slicked back from his face, he looked older, more mature, and even though he was mostly naked, he stood comfortably in his body.

Not that there was any reason he shouldn’t, Bruce thought distantly, his eyes flickering from Clark’s biceps to his stomach, to the stretch of the towel across his thighs. There was a rosy flush covering his skin from the heat of his shower, water dripping in careless trails down his neck and chest, and as Clark dropped his hand from the door and turned toward him, Bruce also noticed—

“What happened there?” Bruce asked, finding his tongue at last as he put his hand on his own rib cage, mirroring the spot where Clark had a circular scar. It wasn’t very large, but it stood out against the background of his unmarked skin.

“Oh! Yeah,” Clark said, his cheeks turning redder. “I, uh, you know, I was always getting into trouble as a kid.”

It wasn’t an answer, likely from embarrassment over something foolish, and if Clark hadn’t been standing there, looking so damn appealing that Bruce’s fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, he probably would’ve let it go.

He blamed curiosity for being the reason he crossed the distance between them and said huskily, “I bet you were all kinds of a troublemaker,” because flirting tended to make people flustered or flattered enough to lower their guards and talk.

He knew it was an excuse, though. He mostly was just relieved to have something else to think about, to push his worries to the background, and Clark was beautiful enough that flirting wasn’t just easy but something Bruce eagerly wanted to do. If he also managed to get Clark to flirt back and thus make him stop looking at him like he had a halo behind his head, well, that'd be alright too.

He reached out slowly, stopping just short of touching Clark’s skin in case Clark wanted to pull back. “What happened?” he asked, looking at Clark through his eyelashes.

“Um,” Clark said, his eyes widening, and his cheeks turning bright red. It was oddly adorable.

For all of his nervousness, however, Clark didn’t step back, leaned forward if anything, so Bruce brushed the tip of his finger over the skin right above scar. Clark shivered. 

Bruce had to resist the urge to shiver as well.

“Should I guess?” Bruce asked teasingly. 

“I, uh, don’t think you’d get it,” Clark said, one lone drop of water sliding right past his nipple, and that was way more fascinating than it had any right to be.

“Did you … fall on a pitchfork?” Bruce asked, because it was obviously a puncture wound of some kind.

Clark gave a breathy laugh. “No.”

Bruce traced the edge of the circle, although he paid more attention to the way Clark’s chest hitched than the scar itself. He grinned slyly as he said, “Did you jump off the roof because you wanted to see if you could fly?”

Clark coughed, but he was still smiling as he shook his head.

Bruce was tempted to rest his hand fully on Clark’s side, wanted to feel more of Clark’s warmth, and he had to remind himself they were just innocently flirting. He tried to concentrate on the scar. Funny enough, at this distance, it actually reminded Bruce of— “Were you shot?” he asked absently, more interested in the way Clark’s wet skin reflected the sunlight coming through the doorway.

Clark didn’t answer, so Bruce looked up—and faltered at the look on Clark’s face.

“Clark,” he said, jerking his hand away as he straightened and sounding just as horrified and shocked as he felt. “ _Were_ you shot?”

“Maybe …” Clark’s eyes darted around like he was looking for an escape. “Maybe a little bit?” 

He winced at Bruce’s expression.

“Well, I mean, it’s … okay, so yeah, I was shot, but not _shot_ shot. It was just kind of a … graze, I guess?” Clark said, even though it didn’t look like a graze at all. “And obviously I was fine, _am_ fine, but uh …” Clark looked acutely uncomfortable, and Bruce might have regretted asking if he hadn’t been so stunned. “We were out one night, and ... there was a mugging.”

Bruce barely stifled the flinch. That had happened to Clark too? 

Except ... except no one had magically come to save them.

“How did you .. but why would he aim … ?” Bruce couldn’t finish the sentence and he wondered how anyone would choose to hurt a child, because the scar was old. It had to have happened years ago.

“He didn’t mean to,” Clark said, shifting and clearing avoiding Bruce’s eyes now. “I kind of … got in the way.”

Clark obviously didn’t want to talk about it, and Bruce intended to leave it at that, couldn’t believe he’d brought up a childhood trauma on a day that was already so traumatic. So he didn’t understand why his lips formed a sentence without his permission. “I can’t believe something like that happened in a place like Smallville.”

“Oh no, we were visiting some of my dad’s friends in Gotham,” Clark said, and for a second, all Bruce could hear was static. 

_There was a mugging_ , Clark had said, not _we were mugged_.

_I kind of ... got in the way._

_Gotham_. 

“—know what, I’m dripping all over the floor. I should get dressed.” 

Bruce somehow managed a jerk of his head, and Clark went into his room, closing the door behind him.

\-----

Bruce stuck to his plan to leave the next day. He needed time to gather his thoughts and Clark to recover from nearly losing his father yesterday. 

Things had been a little stilted after Clark had come out of his room, but Bruce had acted as if nothing strange had occurred, and then they’d put together sandwiches for dinner, and then Martha and Jonathan had come home, and by the time they’d all gone to bed, Clark had been happy to exchange phone numbers with him.

Even if he hadn’t been, Bruce had already left a tracker he’d been working on stuck to the underside of Clark’s bed frame. He knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn’t shake the fear that the Kents would decide to move and then disappear into thin air.

He also left a microphone in Clark’s bedroom and in the living room. The signal strength wasn’t as strong as he’d like, but he’d find someplace to leave his phone attached to a charger in Smallville. The recordings would be uploaded to one of his personal cloud servers, so he’d be able to access them in Gotham. 

He squashed down the guilt at the invasion of privacy. He didn’t have proof that Clark was the one who’d saved his family, and Clark hadn’t done anything over the past day to indicate he was anything other than normal, but there _had_ been unusual things happening locally, and Clark had been shot in Gotham, and …

Bruce had to know. He had to.

“Are you sure we can’t convince you to stay longer?” Martha asked, and Bruce smiled, shaking his head.

“Thank you, but no. I’d … really like to go home,” he said, adding a sheepish note to his laugh, and Martha nodded in understanding before hugging him.

“Thank you. So much, Bruce,” she whispered, and she’d already thanked him several times, all three of them had, but he’d stopped being bothered anymore, too focused on what he’d learned. 

“Goodbye,” said Clark, subdued as he hugged Bruce too, but Bruce just nodded instead of replying and couldn’t help but hold onto Clark longer than necessary.

Right before Bruce got into his taxi, Jonathan clapped him on the shoulder and said, “You’re always welcome here. Don’t be a stranger, Bruce.”

“Thank you,” Bruce told him, his eyes straying to Clark. “I won’t.”


End file.
